Snapchat Responds To Chatter About Privacy Policy Change

Most worryingly, the terms grant Snapchat and its partners the right to publish user content outside of the Snapchat platform without the user knowing about it.

The company also says that it may share information with third parties.

For now, although it’s something of a copout from a company whose whole premise is “disappearing” messages, it might be best to take the advice contained in the company’s own privacy policy: “The same common sense that applies to the Internet at large applies to Snapchat as well: Don’t send messages that you wouldn’t want someone to save or share”. A support page says that private messages, which Snapchat calls ‘Snaps, ‘ still automatically delete after they have been viewed, though that is not explicitly stated in the Terms of Service.

Users who update their Snapchat app must tap “Accept” to signify agreeing with the app’s newly updated Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. “And because Snaps submitted to Live and other crowd-sourced Stories are inherently public and chronicle matters of public interest, we may save them indefinitely and allow them to be viewed again through any of our services or third-party sources”.

“While we’re not required to do so, we may access, review, screen and delete your content at any time and for any reason, including if we think your content violates these Terms”, the agreement reads.

When looked at the other social media networks, the modified terms are not very different from that of other social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, although Facebook only extends its rights to content publicly posted on its platform.

In May 2014, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) caught Snapchat misrepresenting its services, as the app had been billed as a private photo and video sharing app that allowed users to send each other content that would self-destruct and be deleted up to 10 seconds after it is viewed.

Messages in Snapchats Replay feature, or those added to the My Story feature and Snapcash, which is Snapchats transaction feature, have always been saved to Snapchat servers. While it is unclear how future plans have shaped this policy, this still shows a change in stance, in regards to user privacy. People are saying the update is scary and makes them want to delete their accounts. While the content of the policy was not drastically new, the company copped a lot of criticism from users who could now clearly see was happening to their data.